#caedesdeo

Oh, I suppose they're fine; I've had a pizza with a bechamel sauce made by someone who knew what they were doing and that was tasty. Most chain pizza places offer a cream-style sauce you can sub in, and while I've tried that I didn't like it, I think because it's hard to make a cream sauce at scale that will last longer than a day or two and actually taste good. But ultimately even a well-made pizza with a white sauce is not really what I think of when I think "I want a pizza". Like if there's a regular margherita style pizza and a white pizza both on offer, unless the white pizza sounds super unique I'm going for the tomato sauce. Still, that's personal preference, it's not like I think it's somehow not a pizza without tomato sauce.

I will say that a pizza without any sauce sounds like basically just cheesy bread. Like I'm not going to quibble if someone calls it a pizza but I'm also not paying pizza prices for cheesy bread, you know?

I've never made a pizza with a cream sauce, though I suppose I could put that on the list of stuff to try. I make pizza with a green pesto sauce instead of tomato sauce sometimes, I do like that, but that's because it's my own pesto without pine nuts in it. I've used hummus instead of sauce before, that comes out kinda dry, and I've tried using a garlic-infused olive oil which ends up a bit too salty and greasy for me.

Steve can hear it coming, rounding the corner two blocks down. It’s loud enough even without his super hearing. He sips at his iced coffee and surreptitiously wiggles in his seat on the cafe patio, trying to get a subtle view of the bike.

He’s expecting to only get a glimpse of it as it flashes by, but as it draws nearer its engine’s roar cuts to a purr. It pulls up to the curb and the woman sitting astride it presses the kickstand down, climbs off.

The Ducati is shiny and red, its polished metal matching the woman’s painted nails. She looks...familiar, somehow. She cuts the engine and jerks the key out of the ignition, flicking to another one so she can open the helmet box.

Steve sits up, sloshing his iced coffee all over his hand. “Peggy?” he blurts out.

Oh man I remember that episode but not the lasagne! I should rewatch that sometime. 

Oh yes! I used to go exploring there when I worked downtown. Did you know there is no fully accurate map of it? Even the rare maps posted in the Pedway aren’t a hundred percent. There’s been too much construction, and buildings don’t have to notify the city when they make minor changes to their areas. But the thing is, when you’re actually in it, realistically it’s just a series of hallways and underground retail areas -- it’s a loosely-connected network of corridors, and it does get Very Weird at times, but mostly it’s just halls between basements. 

The Pedway is one of those aspects of Chicago that if you don’t use it daily you might not know it exists. I still use it quite often to get between train stations or to get access to Macy’s, and I use it in the winter to walk from the north loop to where I live in the south loop (via a series of underground parking garages) but it goes on forever. There’s at least three secret food courts in the Pedway, a DMV, a gym....and a vending machine on the landing of an unlit stairwell in the middle of nowhere. 

That’s the kind of shit that goes down in the Pedway. 

x, x, x

-

Clint pauses and takes a moment to shuffle everything around in his arms so that he’s holding the popcorn bowl under his elbow, the six pack hooked over two fingers, three bags of gummy worms clutched in the remaining three so that he can knock, loudly, with his free hand.

Nat raises an eyebrow at him. He doesn’t explain, but turns the knob and pushes the door open when he hears Bucky’s voice call, “Come in!”

“Oh, come on!” he complains when they enter the kitchen. “You couldn’t have asked us to wait? Just until you finished up?”

Bucky doesn’t look up, but Steve, sitting on the table, turns his head and grins at them. “He’ll be done in two minutes,” he says. “My body pushed out the studs, so Bucky’s helping me re-pierce.”

Bucky, tongue between his teeth, chances a quick glance over at the door. “Hey guys,” he says.

Stalking over to the counter, Clint dumps everything he’s carrying and turns – his back to the table – to help Natasha with her load. “You do this on purpose, don’t you,” he grumbles. “What if I passed out at the sight of needles? Then you’d have a big pile of purple on the floor and who knows, I might have hit my head and died.”

“Good thing you don’t go faint, then, isn’t it?” Bucky asks. “Don’t move, Steve, or I might stab you through the heart.”

Steve goes still for a moment, looking down at his chest rather than craning his neck to see what food Clint and Nat have brought. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “Did you guys bring the sour gummy worms?”

Rolling his eyes and making a pouty face at Nat, Clint holds up the gummy worms Steve had asked about. “Wish I hadn’t,” he mutters under his breath.

(Link)

I mean. I wish I’d bought stock in Whole Foods two days ago. 

I’m not a huge fan of Whole Foods, so I don’t shop there very often. I will probably trim that back even less now, because I really don’t like Amazon and I don’t shop there by policy. (I make exceptions for giftcards but even then I tend to shop at merchants selling through Amazon rather than from Amazon directly.) 

I sorta have some crackpot theories about what a direct purchase move into brickspace means for Amazon, like why it’s doing that, what the goal there is. I’m pretty sure there is some kind of ulterior motive, maybe just appealing to a specific demographic? But I don’t really know what it is, and I suppose I’ll be watching to find out. 

x

-

Steve can tell that it’s going to come out soon. It’s starting to itch around the edges.

He chews at it, trying to satisfy the itch. Nobody needs to see him pulling a barbell out of his face while he’s sitting in a debrief.

Slouching a bit lower in his seat, Steve scrubs a hand through his dirty hair. He’s really, really looking forward to getting home, having a shower, removing the labret piercing and letting it close up for a few hours before he pierces it again.

God, it’s itchy.

He jumps when a loud cracking sound interrupts Coulson’s blathering and looks up. Two seats down, Bucky’s holding a chunk of table in his left hand, blinking at it.